HET KLOKHUIS - WEST POINT ASSOCIATES

RELOCATION TOBACCO MACHINES TO ZIMBABWE

RELOCATION TOBACCO MACHINES TO ZIMBABWE

At the end of April, the company “Het Klokhuis” contacted us enquiring whether we could fly some 20 cigarette machines, with an overall weight of 60 ton, to Zimbabwe on behalf of West Point Associates in Guernsey – the Channel Islands.

“Het Klokhuis”, a company that specializes in the maintenance of tobacco machines, had been asked by West Point to check these machines and to disconnect them electrically. A project leader working for our client accompanied us to Zimbabwe to reconnect the machines and get them ready for production again.

Convoi was a.o. charged with the task of loading the machines with our electrical Valla crane and driving them to the All-Pack packaging company in Lier (B). There, they were duly packaged in timber crates, ready for transport by air. From Lier the machines would then travel in their crates to the cargo airline B-Cargo in Zaventem, from where they would be flown to Zimbabwe.

While the machines were at the packaging company we learned that B-Cargo had applied for chapter 11. There was only one thing for it and that was to divert to Amsterdam at the last minute and to load our crates onto a MartinAir plane. Luckily, this delay did not cause any problems and the machines ended up in Zimbabwe as planned.

In Zimbabwe, the client collected the cargo from the airport, drove it to his premises and literally used might and main to get everything into place. And, as there was no Valla crane around, it all came down to muscle power. But in spite of that, the machines ended up in their new abode, all duly connected. One more international project with a happy ending…